Mack Hollins – November 3, 2021
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Wednesday, November 3, 2021
WR Mack Hollins
(Tell us about your Halloween?) – “We lost a football game. Got home, caught some balls on the JUGS. Went to sleep. Prepare for the next week. Not too eventful.”
(Did you go trick-or-treating?) – “No, I think I’m over the age limit. As much as I would love to knock on some doors and get some free candy and pass it out next year. Then the kids realize I got the stale candy so they stop coming to my door and I can go to bed early. (laughter) That’s deep thinking. It’s next level stuff.”
(How often do you put in work after a game? You said you went on the JUGS machine.) – “Yeah, every time after a game, win or loss. Some of the guys will come to the house, turn on the garage lights and if you angle it just right in my garage, it’s not so close that it’s dangerous and you can shoot and catch. We’ll get 100 or 200. It’s kind of fast when you get a good group of guys.”
(Is it the whole receiving corps?) – “The whole receiving corps has but it’s not all 12 of us at the same time. Sometimes it’s four of us, sometimes it’s eight of us. Off days it will be more. I think win or lose, you have to continue to put in the work. It’s easy to just be like, ‘We’re losing, I don’t need to put in the work,’ or ‘We’re winning and I don’t need to put in the work.’ You just got to keep going, keep going, keep going.”
(Is the garage door open as you are doing this? Are your neighbors there? What do your neighbors think of this?) – “Yeah. The neighbors know by now. Sometimes I’ll bring the JUGS out in the street and I’m shooting like 50-yard balls down the street. They kind of know that’s just what Mack (Hollins) does. Their kids will come and play with us so now I’m the cool kid on the block. They’re okay with it because I’ll throw with their kids or do two-on-two, Mack is the permanent quarterback and I get to show my skills.”
(They catch balls with you? Is that how you get your contested catches?) – “Yeah, you get the little kids and they’ll take like, I got a bunch of pool noodles and I’ll let them just hit me as hard as they can while I’m on the JUGS. They think they’re having fun but really, I’m getting the better of it. It kind of goes back to the candy stuff, it’s always thinking ahead. Like telling your little brother or sister, ‘Hey, go upstairs and grab this, I’ll time you,’ and then all of the sudden they run up there to go get it. (laughter)”
(Has Head Coach Brian Flores or anyone in the building this week brought up examples of teams who dug out of big holes whether it be 1-7 or something else and made something of their season? Have you heard anything like that this week?) – “Not me personally. I think for us, it’s just what do we need to do to get a win. You focus on your keys and how can we execute those keys on Sunday. But no, I haven’t really got any examples like ‘Hey, this team was not doing well and they turned it around.’ I don’t think I’ve ever got those. Even if we had a good season like last season when we were playing well, it wasn’t like, this team did well and look what they ended up doing. You just kind of got to put the blinders on and keep pushing.”
(Has Head Coach Brian Flores or Stephen Ross or any of the players done anything different to keep you guys engaged, motivated, spirits up this week? Any motivational speakers? Anything out of the ordinary these last three days?) – “Nah, for me motivational speeches don’t really do anything. They’re not really worth it to me. Motivational speeches make you feel good for that speech, then you break the huddle and the motivation is over. Preparation makes you confident. The work that you put in the offseason and in practice that week is what makes you confident on Sundays. All the ‘rah-rah’ speeches in the world aren’t going to make you feel like ‘oh, I’m going to play different than what I did all week.’ For me, the motivational speeches don’t really work.”
(What stands out to you about the Texans defense?) – “They fly around a good bit, which is good to go against a team that challenges you. We’ll be prepared and we’ll give them our best run for their money.”
(What observations, if any, have you had about QB Tua Tagovailoa’s emotional state in the last week or two and if it’s changed at all now that the trade deadline has passed?) – “I haven’t seen anything from him that’s different. I couldn’t say like hey, he’s acting different now that 4 o’clock on Tuesday has ended. He’s the same guy. He comes to work, he prepares, he keeps the guys engaged and tells guys, ‘Hey, this is what I want, this is what I don’t want, this is where I’m seeing things when we break the huddle and you’re running routes.’ To me, he’s the same guy.”
(How often do you think about the record? About being 1-7 and is there anything that, moving on from the record, we have a game on Sunday?) – “Personally, when I think about the record, it’s kind of embarrassing. Not kind of – it is embarrassing. We’re 1-7. You put in a lot of work from the day the season ended last year until now and you’re not seeing the fruits of that labor. The only thing you can do is continue to put the work in. You can’t just give up on something because things aren’t going your way. I think it’s easy to do that. It’s easy to scrap the season. It’s easy to say we’re not going to win anymore who cares, let’s just focus on next year, let’s tank. Everybody wants to be treated like a man, everybody wants to be grown, everybody wants to be the big dog this and that. If you want to be all those things, you can’t do that type of stuff. Nobody on this team is and nobody on this team is going to at any point. I certainly won’t allow it nor will the coaches or any of the other captains. We’ll continue to work hard, we’ll continue to push ourselves and whether the fruits want to come or not, we’re going to get them.”
(Is there any product in the hair at this time or no product?) – “Right now, there’s some SheaMoisture in it. SheaMoisture, I mean.”
(We need more tips, the routine or something like that. You have curly hair in this humidity is not easy.)- “I know it’s not easy, that’s why I just pick it out. If I brought the curls in, the helmet would have messed it up and I would have came here looking goofy. I decided to just pick it out so that I can have an excuse for why it’s so wild. Every once and a while, if y’all see me traveling to a game, you’ll see the curls really going if I don’t braid it up and keep it out of my face because it’s about 500 degrees.”
(When was the last time you got a haircut?) – “The last time I got a haircut was – what is it, 2021? The day before training camp in 2019. It’s been some years. I’ll trim the sides here and there. Every girl in here is probably like, ‘You got a lot of split ends,’ and I do. (laughter) I definitely do.”
(Can we get Shea to sponsor you?) – “I mean, Shea? I know y’all see it. Just imagine the things we can do, imagine the things we can do.”
(How long does it take for you to come up with your videos every Friday?) – “What I’d like to say – weeks and weeks. The honest truth? I’ve done them 8 a.m. on Friday before. Sometimes it’s quick thinking, sometimes it’s really prepared. Like last week, if I know it’s something specific like the Crucial Catch, I knew we had that game so that was kind of prepared. I’ve done some breaking practice on Friday like oh, I go to get this done in four hours.”
(Inaudible) – “Sitting in the locker room when guys are like, ‘Did you see this,’ or ‘Have you heard of this?’ And I’ll grab that and if I can Google some more stuff and do some research and find at least like four or five more facts, that’s worthwhile.”
